Entering Cirque du Soleil’s temporary campus in Tysons, Va., is like passing into another world.

Surrounding
the enormous striped white and grey Big Top performance space are a
warren of dressing rooms and training areas, lounges and out buildings
where an army of ridiculously fit performers along with crew, tech,
physiotherapists, food service and security people work hard to present “Volta,” an endearing story of transformation, inspired by the stunning skills and culture of street sports.

Among
the busy crowd is “Volta’s” lead, out dancer/aerialist/choreographer
Joey Arrigo. He plays Waz, a young game show contestant in search of his
authentic self. Recently, Arrigo took a break from the action to talk
about his role.

“Waz
is hiding who he really is. He’s held back by his blue hair, a headful
of blue feathers to be precise. It’s difficult to fully embrace
ourselves. We all have our metaphorical blue feathers,” he says.

Offstage, what are Arrigo’s blue feathers?

“Where do I begin? I have so many,” says Arrigo, 27. “I was never like the other little boys. I didn’t play their games. And
when puberty hit that difference intensified. My Italian Catholic
father was very anti-gay and my mother was uninformed. It wasn’t easy.”

But despite everything, he came out at just 14.

“How was I going to hide all this?,” he says.

He
makes a valid point. Smart, vivacious, entertainingly campy and
handsome with a remarkably athletic dancer’s body, Arrigo’s not easily
overlooked. But he’s not on a star trip.

“It’s
not like Broadway. People aren’t coming to see the lead. As the main
character I tell the story and that’s important, but is definitely a
group with many artists including floor-based acrobats, aerial acrobats,
a clown, comedic performers … and me.”

Touring
with “Volta” since its Montreal premiere in early 2017 (minus a
six-month break), he performs eight-10 shows a week. It sounds a bit of a
grind, but Arrigo insists otherwise.

“Seriously,
‘Volta’ is always changing. We’re constantly polishing the production
and striving to improve our storytelling. When the show opened in
Montreal, my friends gave a perfunctory, ‘really great,’ but when they
see it again, they’re like, ‘Whoa! You guys have really done your work.’
That feels really good.”

Still, the work is taxing. During his much-needed break, Arrigo lived with a handsome bartender he’d met on tour in Seattle.

“It
was the closest I’ve come to settling down,” he says. “I grew a beard
because I could and happily wore my freedom on my face. He was a game
changer.”

In May, he rejoined “Volta” in Chicago, refreshed and reinvigorated.

Growing
up in Canada’s Greater Toronto Area, he virtually lived in the dance
studio. It’s where he excelled and where he was happy.

After
high school, he bobbed around Toronto auditioning for a year. Work
ensued. Among a zillion other jobs, Arrigo was one of Canada’s top 20
dancers on CTV’s “So You Think You Can Dance Canada” (and served as
assistant choreographer on the show for several seasons). He also toured
internationally with Rasta Thomas’ company, Bad Boys of Dance.

But
it wasn’t until Cirque du Soleil, that he began to act as well as
dance. Prior to “Volta,” Arrigo went on European tour with Cirque’s
“Kooza” as “the trickster,” the performance that inspired Cirque’s
artistic directors to tap him to play Waz.

“I
came in as a charismatic theatrical dancer. But before Cirque du
Soleil, I’d been dancing from the neck down. ‘Kooza’ taught me to have
physical dialogue with other actors. I was able to grow skills as an
actor and to make my emotions more genuine on stage and I brought that
to my dancing.”

Looking forward, Ariggo wants “Want to push my character skills to the next level.

“But
foremost,” he says, “I’ll always be a dancer. Whether my body can do
exactly what it does now or not, I want my dance to come from the right
place, a place of love. When I’m 95 years old sitting in a wheelchair
shimmying, I’m going to be one of the greatest dancers you’ve ever
seen.”